1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus suitable for sorting of items, such as icons, and a method for controlling the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various methods for sorting a plurality of pieces of electronic information into a plurality of groups are available in the related art.
In a first method, all of sorting criteria available in a computer (sorting system) are presented to a user in advance to allow the user to freely select a sorting criterion and the computer then performs sorting processing on the basis of this sorting criterion.
In a second method, a computer (sorting system) performs sorting processing on the basis of a sorting criterion prepared by the computer itself and then allows a user to modify the result (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-116296). In this manner, automatic sorting based on a similarity measure and modification of the similarity measure are realized.
However, the first method requires a user to set all of the sorting criteria before a start of sorting processing and the operation required for the user to perform is complicated. In addition, in the second method, since sorting processing is performed regardless of whether the employed sorting criterion matches a sorting criterion desired by a user, the user has to examine whether to modify the similarity measure. As described above, the methods available in the related art do not provide a sorting result based on a desired sorting criterion unless the user sets a sorting criterion in detail.